SHEILA'S FOLK ART BLOG #16 - - DEC 2021

Howdy Y’all!

Well, we survived another year of being locked down. Will it ever end? Just when you think it’s getting better they invent another version of the dreaded Chinese Covid. We’ve lost several friends this year (3 in one week). At our age (I’m 75 and George is 84) we just can’t take many chances, so we stay home. George is having enough problems with his Myasthenia Gravis and on top of that he started losing weight (30 pounds in 3 months). They finally figured out that he wasn’t making blood and started treatment and he’s gained back 4 pounds in a month…it’ll take a long time to get back to where he was before getting sick. He isn’t strong, but he feels good and has no pains. I’m so thankful that he’s happy and can still do the computer work and run the website. Our website is important…by having the website, we have been able to help many of our Folk Art Friends get their work in the hands of collectors all over the country. This year we’ve shipped to 32 different states and sold art made by over 30 different artists. No one knows what the new year will bring…but we’ll be ready. We don’t expect that the lockdowns will vanish….so we’ll just keep looking for new folk artists to add to our gallery. We are NOT in this to make money…we work on a small margin…we just want to help the artists. In 2021 we added about a dozen new artists to our site and in 2022 we’d like to add a dozen more. If you are an emerging folk artist, or know one, we’d like to see jpegs of the art to see if it fits our collector base. After all these years, we have a pretty good idea of what we can sell and what doesn’t fit our mix.

The FOLK ART MARKET IS STRONG!

The folk art auctions have brought record prices this year. Our friend, Steve Slotin…king of folk art auctions, had a record sale last month. The 2 day sale totaled $1,840,968 (including the buyers premium. The star of the auction was a Bill Traylor pencil drawing on the back of a Phillip Morris cardboard ad. The Pre-auction expected price was….$60,000 - 80,000…Final price with buyers premium was $182,500. There were many items that sold in the $10,00—$60,000 range. With so many auctions featuring self-taught art, finally Folk Art is being respected as a legitimate field to collect.

SUPPLY CHAIN MESS

This year we experienced a weird side-effect of the covid lockdown and slowdown of supply channels. We have the art that we feature on our website stored in half dozen different places. One day George went to fill a order…the building with the overhead door. It wouldn’t open…wouldn’t move. He talked to the storage lady…she said occasionally they have problems with springs breaking….she called the overhead door people. They had no springs…and had been out for a couple months and didn’t know when they’d get more. The springs were floating out in the ocean waiting to be unloaded. The door could have been opened but without the springs…it couldn’t be closed….If we’d opened the door we’d had to move HUNDREDS of items to another unit. We left it locked….6 weeks later….they finally got the springs and fixed our unit.

POST OFFICE

The new Postmaster General told the employees to slow down and promised slower service this year. We were lucky…we had very few delayed shipments this season, unlike last year when we were getting lots of phone calls “where’s my order?” The only thing that really messed us up, was the $5.ºº surcharge they put on many shipments. When we post an item on the website….we can’t weight every item and accurately estimate the postal fees. We make a judgement call….sometimes we get it pretty close…sometimes not. We didn’t expect the “surcharge” to be added. We just paid it!

We had one order going to the west coast…we had estimated $18.00 for s/h. When it was packed…we checked the post office rate….they wanted $48.40…..we took it to the Fed Ex location….they charged us $38.80. The shipping box cost us 3.72 + $38.80 for as total cost to us of $42.52 and we had received $18.00…for a net LOSS of $24.52. This was for an item that sold for $95….is that the way to get rich, or not? That’s OK…the buyer was happy with her Minnie Adkins Tree Limb Rooster. Speaking of Minnie, she’s 87 and still carving and she has some surprises coming soon.

We had notified the 18 customers that had bought items that was stored there and refunded their money. After the door was finally fixed….some folks still wanted the ordered items…some didn’t. I’m glad that mess is over!………It’s been a weird year!

We want to thank you for supporting our artists and keeping them busy. 

We wish y’all a Happy Holiday season and a better New Year. 

We hope Santa leaves some Folk Art in your Stocking.

Stay Safe….and Keep Loving Folk Art!                                         SHEILA